Thumbs Down On Reynolds

June 10, 1985

During his Senate confirmation hearing as chief of the Justice Department's civil rights division four years ago, William Bradford Reynolds was urged to push for the rights of minorities. He flatly refused, saying his job would be to enforce the law.

Okay, that was an acceptable response. But a look at Mr. Reynolds' record since he took over the reins as the nation's top civil rights official clearly shows he has chosen to enforce the law as he wants it, rather than as it's written.

Consider some of the actions of the civil rights division under Mr. Reynolds' stewardship:

-- It challenged an Internal Revenue Service regulation that prohibited the racially segregated Bob Jones University from having a tax-exempt status.

-- It abandoned school desegregation appeals in Houston and Kansas City while slowing desegregation investigations in Phoenix, Albuquerque and Rochester, N.Y.

-- It joined the Grove City College court battle that resulted in the weakening of civil rights enforcement. The court, in effect, ruled that colleges and other institutions could discriminate in one department without risking federal dollars in the rest of the institution. That's the opposite of how federal civil rights laws had been interpreted for 20 years.

-- It slowed enforcement of the Federal Fair Housing Act. Settlements of only $1,500 each were obtained over four years for 14 individuals.

With that kind of a record, it's absurd that the president actually wants to reward Mr. Reynolds with a promotion to the No. 3 job in the Justice Department.

No, the Senate can't fire Mr. Reynolds, but it can stop him from having even more power to backtrack on the enforcement of this nation's civil rights laws.